Symptoms include: rigid body, rigid limbs, limbs staying in same position when moved (waxy flexibility), no response, loss of muscle control, and slowing down of bodily functions, such as breathing.[6]

Anne Carter Lee, the mother of Southern General Robert E. Lee, suffered from cataleptic spells that caused her to fall unconscious and grow rigid with tremors. As the story goes, she was mistaken for dead during one of these spells and buried in the family plot in Virginia. Hearing a noise a while later, one of the servants called attention to it, and she was dug up, alive but traumatized. This supposedly happened in 1806, a year before Robert E. Lee was born. However, there is no official record of the event, nor is it alluded to in Robert E. Lee's biographies or those of his father, Henry Lee III, who was prominent in his own right. St. Teresa of Avila experienced a prolonged bout of catalepsy that began in 1539. This episode was precipitated by the stress she was suffering at the Carmelite Convent of the Incarnation. Her legs became rigid, leaving her an invalid for three years. Teresa endured intermittent attacks of catalepsy from then on.[7]

In Eugène Sue's The Mysteries of Paris, the villain Jacques Ferrand experiences a fit described as cataleptic in his final confrontation with Rodolphe, blinded by lamplight and hallucinating with visions of his fantasized Cecily.

In George Eliot's Silas Marner, the main character Silas Marner frequently has cataleptic fits and seizures. It is not mentioned if they are caused by any of the aforementioned factors.

In Edgar Allan Poe's "The Premature Burial", the narrator develops catalepsy. He fears being mistakenly declared dead and buried alive, and goes to great lengths to prevent this. In another of Poe's short stories, "The Fall of the House of Usher", Madeline Usher has catalepsy, and is buried alive by her unstable brother Roderick. Catalepsy is also depicted in "Berenice", thus becoming one of the recurrent themes in Poe's fiction.

In Poppy Z. Brite's Exquisite Corpse, the main character—Comptom, a serial killer (recreation of Jeffery Dahmer's life story) facing a lifetime sentence—uses shamanistic techniques to induce catalepsy, and, convincingly appearing deceased, is able to escape prison.

In Émile Zola's short story "La Mort d'Olivier Becaille" ("The Death of Olivier Becaille"), the title character is buried alive and notes that "I must have fallen into one of those cataleptic states that I had read of".

In Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels, Dr. Fu-Manchu has a serum that induces a state of catalepsy so extreme as to be indistinguishable from death.

In Charles Dickens's novel Bleak House, Mrs. Snagsby has violent spasms before becoming cataleptic and being carried upstairs like a grand piano.

In Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy: Greek Philosophy to Plato, Hegel describes Socrates as having catalepsy caused by magnetic somnambulism when in deep meditation.

In Philip K. Dick's novel Now Wait for Last Year, Kathy Sweetscent becomes immobilized by withdrawal from JJ-180, an alien (and highly addictive) drug. "My God, Kathy thought as she stood gazing down at the record by her feet. I can't free myself; I'm going to remain here, and they'll find me like this and know something's terribly wrong. This is catalepsy!"

In Sam Taylor's Kiki (1931), Mary Pickford feigns a case of catalepsy to keep from being removed from the apartment of the man she secretly loves.

In the soap opera La Traición, the main character, Hugo De Medina, has catalepsy. Later in the telenovela, it is revealed that his daughter, Aurora, has the same illness.

In Chavo del Ocho, the main character, El Chavo, would have cataleptic-like fits if frightened, where he would curl as if sitting down in a chair and become stiff. However, he could be healed by being splashed with water.

In Isle of the Dead (1945), Katherine Emery's character suffers from a multitude of illness' that render her almost incapable of caring for herself. Of these many illness' she is subject to catatonic trances which inevitably lead to her demise.